Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-06-17
THE HEAVENS OPENED.
A Peep into that Gallery Where God
Has Gathered the Chief Treas
ures of His Realm.
The Deepening Twilight Of Earth's
Might Only the Opening Twilight
OF Heavens Morn.
Christ will be Present at the Christians
Deathbed and Darkness will Go
Out-A Grand Prophecy.
snecial to- the Gazette

BROOKLYN, n. June 12.-This morn
ing at the Tabernacle the Rev. 7. Dewitt
Talmsge, D. D., expounded appropriate
passages of scripture, after which the
congregation sang the iavorite hymn
"There is rest for the weary" The
reverend DOCTORS text was Acts, vii. 80
co: "Behold l see the heavens opened,
and the Son OF man standing on the right
hand of God. Then they cried out with
loud voice snd stopped their ears, and
ran upon Him with one accord, and cast
Him out of the city, and stoned Him; and
the witnesses laid down their clothes st a
young mans feet, whose name was Saul.
And they stoned Stephen, calling upon
God and SAYING Lord Jesus, receive my
spirit. And he knneled down and cried
with loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin
to their charge. And when he had said
this, he fell asleep" The preacher said:
Stephen had been preaching s rousing
sermon, and the people could not stand
#. They resolved TO do as men some
times would like to do in this day, if
they dared, with some plain preacher of
righteousness-kill him. The only way
TO silence this man was to knock the
breath out o! him. So they rushed Ste
phen out of the gates of the city, and with
curse, and whoop, and below, they
brought him TO the cliff, as was the Gus
tom when they wanted TO lake away the
life by stoning. Having brought him to
the edge of the cliff, they pushed him of.
After he had fallen they came and looked
down, and seeing that he was not yet
dead, they began
TO DROP STONES UPON HIM,
stone after stone, stone after stone.
Amid this horrible rain of missiles Ste
phen chambers up on his knees and folds
his hands, while the blood drips from his
temples to his cheeks, from his cheeks to
his garments, from his garments to the
ground; and them looking up, he makes
two prayers-one for himself and one for
his murderers. lord Jesus, receive my
spirit;" that was for himself "Lor3,
lay not this sin to their ch1rge;" that
was for his assailants. Then, from pain
and loss of blood, he swooned away and
fell asleep.
1 want to show you to-day five pic
lures. Stephen gazing into heaven.
Stephen looking at Christ. Stephen
stoned. Stephen in his dying prayer,
Stephen asleep.
First, look at Stephen gazing into
heaven. Before you take leap you want |
Before you climb ladder you want to |
know 10 what point the ladder reaches. !
And il was right that Stephen, within 8 |
few moments of heaven, should be gazing !
into it. We would all 60 wei to be |
found in the same posture. There Is
enough in heaven to keep US gazing. A |
man of large wealth may have statusry |
in his nall, ana paintings in the sitting
room, and works of art in all parts of the
house, but he has the chief pictures in
the art gallery, and there hour after hour
you walk with catalogue and glass and
ever increasing admiration. Well, heaven
is the gallery where God has gathered
the chief treasures of His realm. The
whole universe is His palace. In this
lower room where we stop there are
many adOrnments; tessellated floor of
amethyst and blossom, and on the wind
ing cloud stairs ere stretched out canvas
on which commingle azure and purple
and saffron and gold. But heaven is the
gallery in which
THE CHIEF GLoRIES ARE GATHERED.
There are the brightest robes. There
are the richest crowns. There are the
highest CIVILIZATIONS. John says Of it:
"The kings Of the earth shall bring their
honor and glory into IT," And See the
procession forming, and in the line come
ell empires, and the stars spring up into
the arch for the hosts to march under.
They keep step to the sound of earth
quake and the pitch of avalanche from
the mountains, and the flag they bear is
the flame of consuming world, aud all
heaven turns out with harps and trumpets
and myriad voiced reclamation of angelic
dominion to welcome them in, and so the
kings of the earth bring their glory and
honor into it. Do you wonder that good
people often stand like Stephen, looking
into heavenf We have g great many
friends there. There is not man in this
house to-day so isolated in life but there
is some one in heaven with whom he
once shook hands. AS a man gets
older, the number of his celestial &C
quaintanCes very rapidly multipleS. We
have not had one glimpse of them since
the night we kissed them good bye and
they went away; but still westsnd gazing
at heaven. As when some of our friends
go across the sea, we stand on the dock, .
or on the steam tug, and watch them, and
after awhile the hulk of the vessel disap-
pears, and then there is only patch of {
sail on the sky, and soon that is gone,
and they are all out of sight, and yet we
stand looking in the same direction; so
when our friends go away from US into
the future world we keep looking down !
through the NarrowS, and gazing and l
gazing as though we expected that they I
would come out and stand on some l
evening cloud, and give us one glimpse
Of their blissful and TRANSPORTED faces. l
While you long to Join their companion $
ship, and the years and the days 60 with [
such tedium that {
THEY BREAK THEIR HEART,
and the viper of pain, and sorrow, and '
bereavement keeps gnawing at your vi
.als, you still stand, like Stephen, gazing d
INTO heaven. You wonder if they have U
changed since you saw them last. You c
wonder if they would recognize your b
lace now, SO changed has 1t been with 7
.rouble. You wonder if, amid the myriad
delights they have, they care as much for '
you as they used to when they gave you Y
l helping hand and put their shoulder I'M q
Ter your burdens. You wonder if they {
ook any older; and sometimes in t
&c evening tide when the {
use is all quiet you won :
CT if you should CELL them by their first p
lame if they would not answer; and per- g
laps sometimes you do make the expert t
nent, and when no enc but God and t
Yourself are there You distinctly call Il
heir names and listen and wait and sit Il
gazing into heaven. o
Pass on now and see STEPHEN looking I
upon Christ. My text says he saw the II
Son Of Man at the right hand of God. ST